monday monday

We're expecting house guests this weekend, (and I've been lazy in the kitchen lately), so I chose meals this week we could eat more than once.

This week's meals:

-Penne a la Betsy - It's been almost a month since we last had this. It's time!!

-Chicken Wild Rice Casserole (recipe below) - I found this in the "make it tonight, serve it tomorrow" section of the 1984 Southern Living cookbook. There's some good stuff in there! I cooked a herbed mushroom recipe on Friday, to have with Oregano Chicken and rice, and they were delish! '84 was a good year :)

-Preston's cooking steak, potatoes and brussel sprouts one night

And to satisfy my sweet tooth- Peanut Butter Cup cookies

Chicken Wild Rice Casserole
from Southern Living 1984 Annual Recipes
(yields 6-8 servings)
1 6 oz package long grain wild rice
1/4 c butter
1/4 c flour
1 13 oz can evaporated milk
1/2 c chicken broth
2 1/2 cups cooked chicken
1 3 oz can sliced mushrooms, drained
1/3 c chopped green pepper
1/4 c chopped pimento
1/4 c slivered almonds, lightly toasted

Prepare rice according to package directions and set aside.
Melt butter in a heavy saucepan over low heat; add flour, stirring until smooth. Cook 1 minute stirring constantly. Gradually add milk and broth; cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened and bubbly.
Combine sauce, rice, chicken, mushrooms, green peppers, and pimento. Pour into a lightly greased 2 qt casserole. Sprinkle with almonds. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Remove casserole from refrigerator; let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Remove cover, and back at 350 for 35 minutes.

Ugh, did I tell you we think our dishwasher broke?? Not fun. I'm checking with our first year home owner's warranty tomorrow to see if this is covered. Fingers crossed.

Hope y'all had a wonderful weekend!

all about the food

Just a quick recap on some of the last few weeks recipes..

Last week's menu wasn't followed at all...partly because I was throw up sick for a few days. And food just wasn't on my mind. But mainly because I'm just lazy and burnt out in the kitchen. I did make the risotto and spiced tenderloin. While cooking the risotto, I realized the recipe on the bag of rice was similar to the Real Simple recipe, except the bag asked for garlic salt. And I'm all about the garlic, so I added the garlic salt from the bag recipe, and didn't think to reduce the salt from the RS recipe, and we ended up with pretty salty risotto. Paired with the pork, it worked. But now I know.

I'm all about the sweets and we've had some winners lately - Trifecta cookies and pumpkin and cream cheese muffins are both equally DIVINE.

I'm anti cooking this week...hence Preston cooking burgers, steaks, and his stew

Sunday
Chicken Fried Rice - this turned out really well! I was worried it would be oily or too soy sauce-y. But it was easy and filling

Monday
Preston's stew. I could pass on this meal, but he loves it. It's just stew meat, carrots and potatoes with his choice of spices. I think I'll be thawing out my PW chicken spaghetti for these two nights.

Tuesday
Stew again. Yippee

Wednesday
Steak, rosemary potatoes

Thursday
Burgers and onion strings. Using the grill as long as we can!!

Friday
Pizza!!

I love bad Craig's list photos.

This add was for the desk :)

Happy Monday!

it's hard to cook when nothing sounds good!

So.. I planned this week's meals on Sunday, had a fabulous double digit grocery receipt and realized today I didn't include Tuesday. And I have a girl's night Thursday. No wonder this week was cheaper than a tank of gas!

Sunday
chili

Monday
I got sick Sunday night...I don't think it was due to the chili but it was a rough Monday. P had pizza...much to my chagrin. I hate missing pizza night.

Tuesday
Pulling together brown sugar spiced tenderloin, bacon bow tie pasta, and squash

Wednesday
Pan seared Tilapia in italian bread crumbs, low maintenance risotto and brussel sprouts

Thursday
Girls night! I'll bring the wine :)

Friday
Pizza?!

why aren't all weekends 4 days long?

We had a great time in Dallas this weekend! But I'm so glad I took today off to get back to normal. The house was dirty, kitchen cabinets empty, and my body flat worn out.

This week's meals:
Sunday
Pizza. You really think I was going to cook?!

Monday
White Chile Casserole from Tasty Kitchen courtesy of Kate
We had this for dinner tonight. YUMMO. Easy. Tasty. Enough for leftovers. My kind of meal.

Tuesday
First Tuesday Girl's dinner for me. Leftovers for P. Can't lie, I'm kinda jealous.

Wednesday
Deconstructed Enchiladas from Tasty Kitchen
I'm not sure how I'm going to sneak two Mexican-ish meals in this week. I hadn't planned on the theme, but the white chili casserole is more like enchiladas and less like chili. I may swap this one out...

Thursday
Pork chops, squash - Preston's night

Friday
Can I get away with two nights of leftovers? Here's hoping

Saturday
French onion soup for lunch
Chili for the next 3 days :)

Besides cleaning and napping today, I made hummus and some cinnamon bread. I also finally started the C25K program. If you follow me on twitter, I've thrown around the idea for awhile. Heat was always the biggest deterrent, and I knew the week before OU/TX wasn't going to work. So today was the day. I took the dogs, but I'm not sure I'll ever do that again. They do ok on the leash, but two (overweight) dogs...and squirrels...and interval running...I'm surprised they lasted. Hell, I'm surprised I lasted! I'm proud of myself for actually finishing the entire work out. I hope I can stick to the whole 8 weeks! Stay tuned..

I just took my cinnamon bread out of the oven. Fail on the bread. But the cinnamon, sugar dough tastes yummy :) Just keepin' it real.

what's for dinner

I had a nice little three day weekend so grocery shopping and menu making was all completed on Friday!

Saturday- GAME DAY
My contribution: pasta salad, buffalo chicken dip, guacamole, and hummus

Sunday
Penne a la Betsy

Monday
LEFTOVERS YAY!

Tuesday
fish tacos (combining these two)

Wednesday
chicken brochettes

Thursday
(Preston's night) pork chops

I'm already looking forward to the weekend and another sooner win!

Maybe Bed, Bath, & Beyond, I don't know, I don't know if we'll have enough time.

Name that movie?! Preston and I had a nice little weekend, including two trips to the grocery store, two trips to Lowe's, a trip to the park with the dogs, a sooner win (a bummer of a tigers loss), all topped off with a yummy steak dinner cooked by the man of the house and a wrap up of Dexter season 4 (WOWZA). I also watched a little more True Blood. I still can't say I'm hooked, but I am digging the opening song.

I completed and started a lot of projects around the house that I can't wait to share this week. I was concerned about the interior doors needing trim, but figured I could always go back later and add it if needed. I got about half of the doors painted, and I am IN LOVE. I can't wait to have them all finished. We used Valspar's Dark Kettle Black (4011-2) in a semi gloss interior/exterior paint.

The owners before us did a crappy/quick job repainting the doors and trim, so all if it was really sloppy. All door handles were painted on, trim has just been primed, etc. Real annoying when you're trying to get knobs off the door.

front door before

 (I hate that freakin' white storm door, but P swears he'll die before we get rid of it, so storm door it is)

back side of front door and front closet. see the cream?

back of front door after

front closet during :) I used old magazine pages so I wasn't using gobs of tape.

office closet doors (iPhone pic. call me over eager. whatevs)

office door

The doors are really glossy. And again, I'm in love! I can't wait to have them completed, especially the doors to our closets. They're currently blue.

After a long, productive game day, we were all exhausted. Some more than others..

This week's menu:

Sunday

Steak, potatoes and pasta salad

Monday

meatloaf

Tuesday

creamy Italian crock pot chicken

Wednesday

pizza

Thursday

pork chops

Friday

My first time to cook Tilapia!

Hope everyone had a productive, sunny, victory filled weekend! Check back throughout the week for more projects from the weekend!

this week's grub

We're fixing to run out and pick up P a birthday iPhone. I'm excited for him to finally enter the 21st century.

 For the sake of laziness, I'm doing all I can to avoid the store this week.

Monday
Hotdogs and onion strings

Tuesday
crab bisque

Wednesday
pizza

Thursday
pork chops a la Preston

Friday
leftovers (fingers crossed)


Boring I know.

Yesterdays game day/birthday get together was a success!! I ended up cooking a pork butt. So we had barbecue sandwiches, guacamole, salsa, crab bruschetta (which was YUM), cole slaw, cookies, key lime pie and hot wings!

We also served the "basil mojitos" which were fondly called "pesto-jitos" by the end of the night. They are delish.

Ketel Citron vodka
soda
muddled fresh basil leaves

I preferred mine shaken with ice. I can't go on enough at how good these were!

Such a relief the sooners kicked some butt!! Looking forward to more cool Saturday cook outs! Hope everyone's teams did well!

Can't wait for BPad finale tomorrow! Happy Sunday!

in need of a vacation after my vacation

This weekend my mom, sister and I hit up Dallas for some serious shopping and girl time. Saturday was spent at Ikea and watching the OU football game. We also had some delicious food after mom convinced me and the sister 9 pm was too early to go to bed. I'm no longer a seasoned shopper and beer makes me sleepy now. More about the Ikea purchase later.

Preston gets home from his guys Florida trip today and will be shocked at the new decor! Its going to be nice to have curtains on the front windows that the dogs can't peak through to bark at passer bys. Today is also his birthday so I'm trying to get back in the mode and cook something yummy for the guy.

This week's menu:

Monday
A good friend just had her sweet baby girl, so I put together PW Chicken Spaghetti. Preston won't eat this so I froze a little, ate a little, and I'll take the rest to the Loefflers

Tuesday
He's back. Sullivan's Island Shrimp Bog is whats for dinner. Rachel has had this before and said it was yummy. Hopefully I get the same results.

Wednesday
Leftovers?? Fingers crossed. I always have that frozen pizza for desperate times.

Thursday
Another guaranteed two nighter - sausage pasta with spinach and tomatoes

Friday
Leftovers!!!

Saturday
Game day AND P's birthday meal..get ready for this. Shrimp and grits, key lime pie, Oyster shots (my fave) and basil mojitos. Hopefully I can get my dad to make his yummy pie, and I'm still trying to decide between these two S&G recipes. Bobby's looks simple and good. The drinks of this meal are my favorite part! But I'm thinking I'll need to provide a few more apps for the crowd. Any ideas? Maybe fried green tomatoes? Can you get green tomatoes in Oklahoma?

this week's menu

I didn't want to do a lot of heavy grocery shopping yesterday, and I've been craving mexican so no exciting menu this week.

Sunday
PW Meatloaf (my own failure I'm sure, I can't blame Ree for that one), steamed veggies and mac & cheese

Monday
Pizza (B.Pad is on...I'll be doing little time in the kitchen.)

Tuesday
Creamy Mustard Chicken, rosemary potatoes

Wednesday
leftovers

Thursday
eating out mexican

menu planning

I have a pretty good routine planning our weekly meals. It really has help cut spending, not going to the store daily and P doesn't have to ask me daily (at 10:00 AM) what's for dinner.

Kate shared the planner she found on The Project Girl. It's too cute not to share.

I'm not sure how I feel about having my list and menu on the same sheet. My list is normally crumpled and scribbled on by the time we leave the store. But I'm going to try it out. (I'm also kind of nervous about not having lines to write on in the day boxes...but this is a fear I've had to conquer throughout my writing days.)

You can download it for free here.